Not the Only One (Book 1 in the Four of Us Trilogy)

Sixty-One - May 9, 2018

"Hey Brookie," she responded, and her voice was dull.

"What's wrong?" I asked, sitting down on the sand and pulling her down next to me.

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Come on... you can tell me."

Her head snapped toward me. "I can't... because I honestly don't know. Something just feels off..."

I sighed. "Look, Rachel, it's May 9th. We graduate in 16 days. That's enough to make anyone have an existential crisis – then you add all the other stuff that's going on: finding out that Luke and Miles are brothers, that William is a rapist, not to mention the fact that your brother was killed 8 months ago in an unsolved vehicular manslaughter. Your life hasn't exactly been easy since September."

She raised her eyebrows. "I didn't think of it that way."

"I didn't figure you had..." I said, winking.

"There's one other thing that's been bothering me..." she started, trailing off.

"What's that?" I asked, picking up a handful of sand and letting it fall through my fingers.

She inhaled slowly. "I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"... of how much I love Miles."

I looked at her, my eyes searching her face for any trace of jest. I didn't see any. "What do you mean? Why would you be scared of that?"

She stood up, pacing in front of me, throwing her hands in the air as she spoke. "Because of what you just said, Brooke – we graduate in 16 days."

I stared at her blankly. "So?"

She rolled her eyes. "So! Everything is going to change! We won't be students at Bay High anymore and living with our families. We will be on our own... in college."

"I'm still not understanding you, Rachel. You and Miles both want to go to college, right?"

She nodded. "But I decided to go to Florida State."

"Ahhh," I said, finally understanding what she was saying. "And Miles is going somewhere else."

She held her hands out, palms up in a "duh," gesture. "Yes."

"Have you guys even talked about this?" I asked, suddenly glad Luke and I were both staying in town to go to Gulf State for at least the first year.

She shook her head. "No. I've been too afraid to bring it up. The last I heard, he was going to Bama to play baseball. But we haven't actually talked about it. So I've just been stewing on it. And it's getting to me."

"You have to talk to Miles about this, Rachel. I'm sure he's noticed that something is off. You don't want him getting the wrong idea."

She nodded. "You're absolutely right. I'm going to go to talk to him right now. Thank you, Brookie." She hugged me swiftly and ran up the sand dune to her car.

Rachel.

As soon as I got in my car, I called Miles.

"Hey baby," he greeted me, his voice husky. I felt my stomach flip.

"Hey... can you meet me?" I asked, hating how desperate I sounded.

"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice raising an octave.

"Yes – yes. I just need to talk to you."

"Okay... our place?"

"Perfect. See you in 10."